Umi Tea Sets Blog

The spirit of tea art and the tea ceremony is the core of Chinese tea culture. Art refers to the techniques and artistic process ofmaking, cooking and tasting tea, while...

In searching for artistic models, the majority of American ceramists explore the vast heritage of art with the understanding that artistic perfection can be found in any time period and...

Among the consequences of the information age is the abundance of resources available to all, making our time one of the most phenomenal periods ever of intercultural growth. Greater accessibility...

Now, let's talk about the relationship between water and tea art. Please imagine gurgling springs, the waves of rivers, misty vast lakes, and sweet and clear well water. The relationship...

By William R. Sargent Decorative arts from China, present in households in Europe and in America since the early seventeenth century, have long exerted influences on the arts produced by...

My introduction to Yixing ware came in 1981 during my time in graduate school. On a visit to Rochester, new York, I saw the collection of Marguerite Antell. The teapots...

Located on Great Lake (Taihu), across from Suzhou and within the "Golden Triangle," is Yixing. When many of the most renowned scholars flocked to this area in the late sixteenth...

Finding the proper place to live and raise a family had become an obsession for many scholars. There was a desire to belong to a community with peers in close...

The earliest evidence of tea drinkers, around 59 BC, was found among people of the Western Han dynasty. They boiled tea leaves often with grain and other ingredients, mainly using...

Chinese scholars needed scholars# treasures to improve their social status. More importantly, they collected to facilitate progress in their work and to elevate their spirits. As antiquarians, scholars avidly collected...

The Chinese scholar enjoyed interpreting texts - The texts that mattered most were the Confucian classics. Arising out of a need for social structure and unity, Confucian philosophy encouraged the...